A building or town will only be alive to the extent that it is governed by the timeless way.
It is a process which brings order out of nothing but ourselves; it cannot be attained, but it will happen of its own accord, if we will only let it in.
There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named.
The search which we make for this quality, in our own lives, is the central search of any person ... It is the search for those moments and situations when we are most alive.
The more living patterns there are in a place, the more it comes to life as an entirety, the more it glows, the more it has that self-maintaining fire which is the quality without a name.
... Like ocean waves, or blades of grass, its parts are governed by the endless play of repetition and variety created in the presence of the fact that all things pass. This is the quality itself.
... language, and the processes which stem from it, merely release the fundamental order which is native to us. They do not teach us, they only remind us of what we know already and of what we shall discover time and time again, when we give up our ideas and opinions, and do exactly what emerges from ourselves.
